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You might have read about young Rouvanjit Rawla. He used to study in La Martinere for Boys. One of the premiere schools in Calcutta. I am referring to him in the past tense as he took his life recently. Thirteen years is all he got in this world. The caning or corporal punishment that he received in school apparently led to his suicide.

Caning? Didn't that happen only in David Copperfield?

Well not really. I moved into an ‘Indian’ school in Calcutta in 1984 when I was ten. My earlier experience with schools, or play schools, was in the UK, Iran and then in an ‘International’ school in Calcutta. We knew about the Solar System. But not about canes.

The ‘Indian’ school I went to, following the ICSE board, was where I first came across the concept of caning. Except it was with wooden rulers and not canes. Our teachers would take our rulers and then hit us across our palms. At times till the rulers broke. Boys. Girls. No gender discrimination. Across ages. By all teachers. Always on t…

The defining mother son moment of Hindi films of the seventies was Shashi Kapoor telling Bachchan ‘mere paas maa hain’ (Mom’s with me) in 'Deewar'. Nirupa Ray, who played the mother in question, played the same character in a number of other films too. Struggling to put ends meet so that she could bring up Amitabh Bachchan in various movies. Unquestioned devotion to his mother drove the hero and the story of the film.

The recently released Hindi film, ‘Wake up Sid’, showed a very different mother son relation. Supriya Pathak, the mother, was doting and smothering. Ranbir Kapoor, the petulant son. Churlish. Irritated. Snapping at his mother at all points.

Something which would have been unheard of for a hero in the seventies.

Is it becomes the times are different? Is it because we have moved to consumerism from Gandhism?

Or is it because Wake Up Sid was directed by a Bengali? After all Bengali mothers are considered to be amongst the most protective of their sons.

About Me

Kalyan Karmakar began
blogging in 2007 when his wife, who was tired of listening to him talk about
food all the time, opened a blog for him.

She named his blog www.finelychopped.net. The blog recently won the award for the best general food blog category in the FBAI 2017 Awards,

He has recently published his book, The Travelling Belly, which has been published by Hachette India. It is a food travelogue based on his travels across India :

Kalyan started his career as a market researcher and then moved into food writing. He is a cloumnist at the Indian Express, NDTV Foods and Femina. His writings can be found at the Mumbai Mirror, BBC Good Food India, The India Food Network and Scoopwhoop. He is a special guest on Mumbai on Demand on 94.3 Radio One FM and talks every Wednesday between 1 to 2 pm on Food trends.

His YouTube channel is called: Kalyan Karmakar and he is the co-wner of the channe: The Finely Chopped.
He conducts personalised food walks in Mumbai where he introduces the city to
participants through the dishes of his favourite food haunts.

To unwind he heads to the kitchen where he loves to play with ingredients and
his mantra is hassle-free, gut feel-based cooking.

Kalyan is a Bengali who now lives in Mumbai with his wife, who is a Parsi from
Mumbai. He moved in here close to two decades back from Kolkata after spending
his early years in Iran and the UK.

When asked what she feels about her introducing him to blogging, Kalyan’s wife
Kainaz says "I have forgotten the taste of hot food thanks to his
photographing everything on the table before we can eat it".